Microsoft Office

Creating Formulas That
Count and Sum
Many of the most common spreadsheet questions involve counting and
summing values and other worksheet elements. It seems that people
are always looking for formulas to count or to sum various items in a
worksheet. If I’ve done my job, this chapter answers the vast majority of such
questions. It contains many examples that you can easily adapt to your own
situation.
Counting and Summing Worksheet
Cells
Generally, a counting formula returns the number of cells in a specified range that
meet certain criteria. A summing formula returns the sum of the values of the cells
in a range that meet certain criteria. The range you want counted or summed
may or may not consist of a worksheet database.
Table 14.1 lists the Excel worksheet functions that come into play when creating
counting and summing formulas. Not all these functions are covered in this
chapter. If none of the functions in Table 14.1 can solve your problem, it’s likely
that an array formula can come to the rescue.
CROSS-REF
See Chapters 17 and 18 for detailed information and examples of
array formulas used for counting and summing.
If your data is in the form of a table, you can use autofiltering to
NOTE
accomplish many counting and summing operations. Just set the
autofitler criteria, and the table displays only the rows that match your criteria
(the nonqualifying rows in the table are hidden). Then you can select formulas to
display counts or sums in the table’s total row. Refer to Chapter 6 for more information
on using tables.
IN THIS CHAPTER
Information on counting and
summing cells
Basic counting formulas
Advanced counting formulas
Formulas for performing
common summing tasks
Conditional summing formulas
using a single criterion
Conditional summing formulas
using multiple criteria
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